


Sandcastles Aren't Built In A Day

by reliquiaen



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 03:31:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4591359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reliquiaen/pseuds/reliquiaen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lexa thinks Clarke's sandcastles suck. (various ages)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sandcastles Aren't Built In A Day

**Seven**

 

“That’s _hardly_ a sandcastle.”

Startled by the harsh tone, Clarke looked up from patting the sand more firmly together. A girl of not more than seven with a broad floppy hat squashed down around her ears eyed her sullenly. Clarke rubbed her hand against the side of her castle, not looking away from her.

“It’s a perfectly good castle,” she eventually muttered, gaze returning to her creation. It was an excellent castle. Maybe not quite as good as the one her father had made with her earlier – not quite as large or grand – but it was a good likeness.

The girl huffed. “It’s wonky.” She tugged on her blue sun-shirt with one hand and prodded at the castle with the other.

Clarke slapped her hand away. “Leave it alone. It’s a good castle.”

“It doesn’t have any teeth,” she whined, pointing to the top of the wobbly cylindrical tower. “Castles have teeth. It keeps the dragons away.”

“There are no dragons at the beach,” Clarke told her as if it should be obvious. “So it doesn’t matter.”

The girl flopped onto the sand on the other side of the castle to Clarke. “That’s silly.”

For lack of a better retort, Clarke scoffed, “You’re silly.”

A moment of silence passed in which the other girl only stared at her with dark eyes, expression still surly. Then she launched herself at the sandy building and knocked it over.

“Get off!” Clarke screeched. “Get off my castle. You’re ruining it!” She grabbed the girl’s shoulders and pushed at her, trying to save her wonderful castle. It didn’t work. It only resulted in her falling down and crushing it further.

The girl rolled upright, fingers crumpling the last of the walls. “I fixed it.”

“You _ruined_ it,” Clarke told her, shoving at her shoulder. “It’s broken.”

“It was a lame castle anyway.”

Clarke – unable to think of anything suitably chastening to reply to that with – huffed, “It was a good castle. Now I have to start over.”

“Do it better this time.”

She pouted, but before she had a chance to say anything else a woman approached them. She was tall and looked utterly out of place on a beach. Somehow it seemed wrong that she would be here. Clarke could picture her much better in an office. Like her teachers.

“Come, child,” the woman said in a voice that made Clarke sink backwards into the sand. “Stop terrorising holiday makers.”

The woman grabbed the girl’s wrist and tugged her upwards, all but dragging her away. Clarke glared after her but the girl just wrenched her wrist free and trotted after the woman. She did pause though to look over her shoulder and stick her tongue out at Clarke.

She frowned back. And when the little monster had gone, she started reconstructing her castle.

 

* * *

 

**Twelve**

 

Every damn year Clarke and her parents went to the beach. Every year. Sure it was to visit her grandmother and she enjoyed that part. And sure, she supposed she _did_ enjoy sitting on the rocks with her toes in the water or reading a book on the beach or even building sandcastles.

But every single godforsaken year that _annoying_ brat of a girl would be there too. And every single year she insulted Clarke’s castle building skills. She’d gotten better damnit.

“Hey.”

Clarke’s shoulders tensed, ready to sigh heavily and start her construction again once the girl (Lexa, she’d eventually discovered) had kicked it over. Sometimes Clarke wondered why she bothered starting them in the first place.

“Ugh, what?”

But the girl just sank to her knees beside Clarke and held up a bucket with a crenelated bottom. “Wanna hand?”

Clarke eyed her suspiciously. “When do we get to the point where you break it?”

She shrugged. “I’m Lexa.”

“I know. Your mum yells it loud enough you can hear it at the other end of the beach,” she replied tartly. But Lexa’s gaze only lingered expectantly. “Clarke,” she sighed. “And I suppose you can help if you want. I kinda figured you’d want to build your own, more amazing castle.”

At that Lexa flashed her a rather winning smile. “Maybe I’m going to teach you the finer points of sandcastle construction.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Dazzle me.”

Lexa obviously took that as an invitation to expand her rather modest castle. Actually, that’s definitely what she seemed to think it meant. She added two new turrets and helped Clarke make the walls a little more square and a little less like an angular circle.

The other girl was about to add little seashell caps on the two non-crenelated towers when one of them collapsed. It was followed by a whole corner of the wall. They stopped, blinking at it. Then Clarke fell backwards onto the sand, closing her eyes against the sunlight.

“How come you build castles every year?” Lexa asked her.

“Holidays. And as much as I love my grandmother, her house smells like mothballs,” she replied. “I like the beach better.” She opened one eye a slither. “And you? Do you demolish other castles or am I special?”

Lexa looked away and remained silent. Clarke assumed that was her way of saying she’s the beach Grinch and yes she did knock over other sandcastles. She probably enjoyed making little kids wail.

“The house I live in…” she eventually mumbled. “Is not friendly. I like building castles… or other things. But sometimes I need to break them too. It’s less hurtful than punching people.”

Clarke rolled her head away from the sunlight, feeling suddenly very bad for the girl. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want your pity,” she snapped, standing.

“I’m not giving you any,” Clarke replied quietly as Lexa stormed off. “Just a little empathy.”

 

* * *

 

**Fifteen**

 

The next time Lexa materialised at the beach she didn’t have a bucket or a shovel, but she did bring an apology. Apparently attempting to be civil with others is something she’s really been working on since she started high school. Clarke can understand; Lexa’s adoptive mother sounds like a right witch and her ‘brother’ (the mother’s biological son, it seemed) wasn’t much better.

They might only have the summer to talk, but somehow Clarke found herself rather enjoying Lexa’s company. Every year they built castles; some big enough to hide in. Sometimes – when the tides were low – they’d build veritable cities out of sand.

Of course, Lexa took great delight in jumping on them later. She might be stoic and grumpy and bad at communication; but when it came to the destruction of sand property she wore a quiet smile. It was the kind of smile that said she was trying very hard not to, but playing hopscotch with the little houses obviously made her feel better.

And there was that one time when they were shovelling a moat out around their castle that she actually caught Lexa smiling at _her_. Her hands froze in the act of scooping out another pile when she realised her companion’s dark green eyes were watching her closely. And that the gaze was accompanied by the little smile made Clarke’s throat dry up.

Almost she said something, but the words got stuck. So she went back to flicking sand out of their moat. Trying to ignore being stared at was no easy feat. When she glanced up again to see if she was still being observed, she found the other girl had gone back to shaping the moat.

“Hey,” Lexa muttered after a moment, prompting Clarke to look at her again. She rubbed along her thighs, resting back on her laurels. “I’m um… kinda sorry.”

Clarke blinked. “For what?”

“For uh… for breaking your sandcastles when we met. Um… I’ve never had a friend before and I guess I was um…”

She actually started laughing and Lexa glared at her. “I’m sorry,” Clarke said, waving a hand. “Sorry. That’s… Are we even friends?”

Lexa shrugged. “Maybe…? I really like when you visit.” God, she’d gone bright red. Lexa ripped her eyes away, scowling at the waves. “I’ll go.”

“No, wait. Lex!”

She froze. For a moment there neither of them moved, Clarke mentally berating herself for laughing. When Lexa turned, her expression was neutral. “Did you just… call me Lex?”

“Um… yes.” Maybe she shouldn’t have? Is that why she was getting potential-serial-killer face?

“Huh.”

“Huh?”

Slowly, Lexa sank back onto the sand. “Nobody’s ever called me that before.”

“I didn’t… If you want I won’t do it again,” Clarke offered.

“No, that’s okay. I don’t mind.” For the first time (in what Clarke thought was ever) Lexa smiled. A proper – happy – one. “Do you maybe… wanna go swimming?”

Clarke smiled back. “Sure.”

And that year was the first time Lexa had ever not worn a sun shirt. Ever. Honestly (really, truly _honestly_ ) Clarke was in no way upset by the development. Because Lexa in her bikini was just fine. Yep, totally good.

Clarke’s respiration on the other hand… _might_ have suffered a little. Weird how she couldn’t stop herself from watching the way Lexa’s stomach stretched as she pulled the shirt off and threw it at their castle. Embarrassing actually. Clarke missed when it knocked the top off a tower.

She blinked back to the present and followed her into the waves.

Lexa seemed to consider swimming involved a lot of floating on her back. Which was alright. Except that she presented such a wonderful target and Clarke could _not_ resist the urge to splash her with water.

She spluttered, losing her balance and tipped over. When she regained her footing and was trying very hard not to smile. But there was a crease at the corners of her mouth that gave her away.

“That was uncalled for,” she said flatly. She didn’t move for the longest moment and Clarke could only picture a scene from an old western movie. Two gunslingers facing off in the dusty street, hands at the ready.

And then Lexa shifted, her arm slapping at the water sending a wave right into Clarke’s face. So she splashed back. Really, what else could she do?

“Oh it’s on, princess,” Lexa laughed. Clarke couldn’t see her move through the water in her eyes, but suddenly something hit her and she tumbled backwards.

She resurfaced shrieking vengeance. But Lexa – who’d obviously given her a push in the shoulder – just smiled at her. She shook her head.

“How about we go get ice cream?” Clarke suggested.

“You don’t want to build another sandcastle?” Her tone was mocking.

“Maybe later.”

 

* * *

 

**Seventeen**

 

“Another sandcastle?” Lexa dropped to the sand beside her, lying on her back. “Colour me surprised.”

“Don’t be mean.” The only reason Clarke knew Lexa was teasing her was by the cheeky little smile she wore. “You want to help? The eroded banks got me thinking that we could probably make quite an excellent castle this time.”

“Maybe even a collection of hobbit holes.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. Or maybe rabbit warren if hobbits aren’t your thing.”

“So much sass, Griffin,” Lexa laughed. “But okay. You want to carve out a castle in the bank, let’s do it.”

Clarke looked up from dribbling damp sand on top of an intricate spire to fix the other girl with pure startlement. “Really?”

“Yep.”

“Are you sure?”

She smiled quietly. “Yep.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Of course, when Clarke rolled to her feet and headed for the eroded bank further up the beach (courtesy of the king tide that had smashed the coast a few days prior) Lexa simply _had_ to kick over her nearly finished castle. She pursed her lips so as not to say something tart and walked away.

“One day,” she grumbled when Lexa joined her. “Someone is going to build a castle that you just can’t bring yourself to knock down. And I hope I’m there to see it.”

Lexa was silent, eyes more intent on carving out a roundish shaped hole to become a portcullis while Clarke traced a rough outline of a castle in the sand so they could excavate the right form. But after about five minutes, Clarke knew something was up. Lexa could hardly keep her scathing comments to herself for that long. This was something she’d come to realise after spending ten years hanging out during the summer months.

“You alright?” she asked, poking the crenulations into place.

Her eyes whipped up, inspecting Clarke’s face for something. “Yeah. Why?”

She shrugged. “You’re kind of quiet. It’s weird.”

“Me being quiet is _weird_ ,” she asked drolly. “It’s like you don’t know me at all.”

“I just mean that I was expecting some sort of derogatory comment by this point.”

Lexa merely shook her head and went back to making a rudimentary drawbridge. But then she did speak, and her words were… highly unexpected. “Next year… you probably won’t come back, will you?”

Clarke tilted her head. “I don’t know. Why?”

“Well,” she said, hunching her shoulders. “You’ll probably have gotten into some super fancy university and you’ll be living with your best friend. Hanging with your boyfriend on the weekends and doing university stuff. Too busy to holiday here.”

She smiled. “I dunno about that, Lex. That hypothetical boyfriend is definitely not a thing. At all.”

Lexa gave her a flat look. “I don’t believe you.”

“Seriously?” she teased. “It’s been ten years and you’re _that_ oblivious?”

“To what?” Her eyes went back to the portcullis.

Well… if that’s how she was going to be… Clarke leaned forward off the top of the bank and kissed her cheek. Lexa lost her balance, falling backwards onto her butt. Clarke had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

“What… the _hell_ was that for?” Lexa huffed, righting herself slowly.

She rolled her eyes. “That was me demonstrating my lack of interest in getting a boyfriend, Lexa.”

Her mouth made a little ‘o’ as what Clarke had said slowly sank in. “You’re… gay.”

“Well… Bi. But yes, incredibly.”

“And I didn’t know this?”

“You _are_ oblivious to the feelings of others.”

Lexa bobbed her head, not denying that. She chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment, unable to meet Clarke’s gaze. “So…”

“So,” she agreed, kicking her legs in the air behind her.

“You um…” Clarke waited patiently, wondering idly what Lexa was thinking so hard about. What she’d take from this. She was not prepared (at _all_ ) for Lexa to roll onto her knees and kiss her. Not on the cheek, on her mouth.

Lexa didn’t pull away, she hovered there, lips the barest of millimetres from Clarke’s. It was unbelievably distracting.

“Oh,” Clarke sighed.

“Yeah.”

Her eyes dropped to Lexa’s mouth before returning to her eyes. “Do it again?”

Lexa didn’t wait to be asked a second time.


End file.
